Dear James: We are planning a substantial room addition to our dream home. We are not on a tight budget, and we want everything done right. Should we use plaster walls or standard drywall walls? — ...

Q. We're buying a house that is probably close to 100 years old. It has been vacant for the past several years and needs a good amount of cleaning up and fixing up. One thing we're concerned about is ...

At the turn of the 20th century, plaster was the most popular interior wall covering in North America, and it remained so for the next several decades. But things have changed since then. Drywall, ...

Q. We just bought our first house, an American Foursquare, dated 1917. It has been vacant for several years and the interior is not in the best condition. We'd like to gut it to get rid of the sagging ...

Dr. Elizabeth Yuko is a bioethicist and adjunct professor of ethics at Fordham University. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, CNN & Playboy.

Covering an old ceiling with new drywall is a big job—it requires basic drywall skills, heavy lifting, a serious time commitment and a major mess. But in some cases, it’s the smartest way to go. We ...

Question: I have two questions. My first question has to do with the removal of stipple from the living and dining room ceiling. The house was built in 1950, and the walls and ceiling were drywalled ...

Q: The walls of our 1938 San Francisco home are lath and plaster, with a canvas-like fabric over the plaster. There are cracks in the plaster, which can be seen through the paint as raised creases in ...

Save the plaster! This might have been the rallying cry of Julia Child, were she a preservationist rather than a chef. “Preserving nice plaster work, if possible, is always worth it,” reBUILD Workshop ...